/sci/ - Science & Math

Does anyone understand this Jeff guy's space vision?

He vaguely explains his motivation:
>we will have to leave this planet
>we don’t have a lot of time

Hmm, ok, could be true. If he means overpopulation for example (although many people believe that earth can harbor billions of additional people with efficient technology, e.g. efficient agriculture). Even though his motivation is only vaguely formulated and not true on a timeframe of some generations at least, let's agree that no one wants humans to be stuck on earth forever.

The solutions he proposes is where it get's really weird. He want's millions of people to live and work in space. How would that solve any problem? Any space station, let it be 1000 times as big as the ISS, won't be autark, they will all depend on supply from earth with earthly products.
And he says it's very important to have a long term moon basis. Again, nothing on the moon will ever be autark (opposed to mars where there is such a variety of elements and molecules and a chance to get a nice atmosphere). I would agree that the moon can be a good place to test technology that is meant for mars, given that the moon is always in reach and mars can only be reached every 2 years, combined with a months long travel. But why would it be necessary that there is something
like the ISS that just lands on moon's surface. It needs to be constantly supplied from earth like the ISS, it won't help to get "millions of people living and working in space".

In conclusion, space stations and moon bases will ever depend on earth so they are not a backup for earthly live. And they will be fucking expensive. A mars colony has a chance to be self-sustaining one day and won't cost earth anything, it might even improve some earthly GDPs because of it's imports. Is Jeff Who a joke? What am I not understanding?